A Feast of Serndib by Mary Anne Mohanraj
Rating: 4/5
Blurb
Dark roasted curry powder, a fine
attention to the balance of salty-sour-sweet, wholesome red rice and toasted
curry leaves, plenty of coconut milk and chili heat. These are the flavors of
Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka was a cross roads in the sea routes of the East. Three waves of colonization—Portuguese, Dutch and British—and the Chinese laborers who came with them, left their culinary imprint on Sri Lankan food. Sri Lankan cooking with its many vegetarian dishes gives testimony to the presence of a multi-ethnic and multi -religious population.
Everyday classics like beef smoore and Jaffna crab curry are joined by luxurious feast dishes, such as nargisi kofta and green mango curry, once served to King Kasyapa in his 5th century sky palace of Sigiriya.
Sri Lanka was a cross roads in the sea routes of the East. Three waves of colonization—Portuguese, Dutch and British—and the Chinese laborers who came with them, left their culinary imprint on Sri Lankan food. Sri Lankan cooking with its many vegetarian dishes gives testimony to the presence of a multi-ethnic and multi -religious population.
Everyday classics like beef smoore and Jaffna crab curry are joined by luxurious feast dishes, such as nargisi kofta and green mango curry, once served to King Kasyapa in his 5th century sky palace of Sigiriya.
Vegetable dishes include cashew
curry, jackfruit curry, asparagus poriyal, tempered lentils, broccoli varai and
lime-masala mushrooms. There are appetizers of chili-mango cashews, prawn
lentil patties, fried mutton rolls, and ribbon tea sandwiches. Deviled chili
eggs bring the heat, yet ginger-garlic chicken is mild enough for a small
child. Desserts include Sir Lankan favorites: love cake, mango fluff,
milk toffee and vattalappam, a richly-spiced coconut custard.
In A Feast of Serendib, Mary Anne Mohanraj introduces her mother’s cooking and her own Americanizations, providing a wonderful introduction to Sri Lankan American cooking, straightforward enough for a beginner, and nuanced enough to capture the flavor of Sri Lankan cooking.
In A Feast of Serendib, Mary Anne Mohanraj introduces her mother’s cooking and her own Americanizations, providing a wonderful introduction to Sri Lankan American cooking, straightforward enough for a beginner, and nuanced enough to capture the flavor of Sri Lankan cooking.
Review
I have a slight addiction to cooks so when the chance to
review A Feast of Serendib by Mary Anne Mohanraj came up I jumped at the
chance, especially as Sri Lankan food is something, I know nothing about and
I’m always eager to learn about a new cuisine.
For me a good cookbook has to have three elements, recipes that I want to cook which don’t
contain loads of ingredients and numerous steps, photographs of the majority of the recipes so
I know what I’m aiming for and thirdly be an interesting read where I can learn
something about the author, I think A Feast of Serendib has managed to achieved
all three of these well.
There is a wide selection of recipes, so you really get a
feel for the cuisine, with an emphasis on curried dishes but also recipes for
some drinks and desserts which I liked. Many of the recipes call for the use of
Sri Lankan curry powder and I’m pleased the author has included a recipe to
make my own, apart from the dried curry leaves I already had most of the spices
in my cupboards. I’ve not had the chance to make many of the recipes yet but
from the few I’ve tried the Fish White Curry and the Tangy Peppered Beef Stew
being favourites, just watch out for the peppercorns, my kids also liked the
Garlic-Ginger Chicken.
Each recipe has its own photo and a little introduction
about the dish which I really liked as t gives more insight into the recipes. The book also has a detailed introduction which
gives a lovely insight into the culture and cuisine of Sri Lanka. I think the
author has done a great job with this cookbook and I’m looking forward to
trying more recipes very soon.
Thank you so much to the author for sending me a copy to
review and to Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to be part of the blog
tour.
About the Author
Mary Anne Mohanraj
is the author of Bodies in Motion
(HarperCollins), The Stars Change
(Circlet Press) and thirteen other titles. Bodies
in Motion was a finalist for the Asian American Book Awards, a USA Today
Notable Book, and has been translated into six languages. The
Stars Change was a finalist for the Lambda, Rainbow, and Bisexual Book
Awards.
Mohanraj founded
the Hugo-nominated and World Fantasy Award-winning speculative literature
magazine, Strange Horizons, and also founded Jaggery, a S. Asian & S. Asian diaspora literary journal (jaggerylit.com). She received a Breaking Barriers Award from
the Chicago Foundation for Women for her work in Asian American arts
organizing, won an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Prose, and was Guest of
Honor at WisCon. She serves as Director of two literary organizations, DesiLit
(www.desilit.org) and The Speculative Literature Foundation (www.speclit.org). She serves on the futurist boards of the
XPrize and Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.
Mohanraj is Clinical Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and lives in a creaky old Victorian in Oak Park, just outside Chicago, with her husband, their two small children, and a sweet dog. Recent publications include stories for George R.R. Martin's Wild Cards series, stories at Clarkesworld, Asimov's, and Lightspeed, and an essay in Roxane Gay’s Unruly Bodies. 2017-2018 titles include Survivor (a SF/F anthology), Perennial, Invisible 3 (co-edited with Jim C. Hines), and Vegan Serendib. http://www.maryannemohanraj.com
Mohanraj is Clinical Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and lives in a creaky old Victorian in Oak Park, just outside Chicago, with her husband, their two small children, and a sweet dog. Recent publications include stories for George R.R. Martin's Wild Cards series, stories at Clarkesworld, Asimov's, and Lightspeed, and an essay in Roxane Gay’s Unruly Bodies. 2017-2018 titles include Survivor (a SF/F anthology), Perennial, Invisible 3 (co-edited with Jim C. Hines), and Vegan Serendib. http://www.maryannemohanraj.com
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